Where Is Your Career Now?

Having given consideration to where you want your music career to go, and knowing that you need a plan to get there, you need to assess where you are. Your career, at this exact moment is your starting point. Your plan for your career will need to take you from that point to where you want to go. So, how do you assess where your career is at right now? That’s a big topic that differs for everyone so I will put it this way – you need to determine what pond are you swimming in right now? Is it a local pond, a regional pond, a provincial pond, a national pond, or an international pond? In other words, who are you comparing yourself to? If you are in the local pond - you might be the best swimmer in that pond. But, if you want to make a career - you will need to start comparing yourself to a different standard and start thinking about how to build a career to compete in that pond.

There are three distinct aspects to determining what pond you are in – at least in my opinion. Those aspects are: live performances; recording history (CDs sold, digital downloads, etc.); and presence (press, fan base, etc.). Let’s look at each of those separately.

I will start with live performance quality and history because the bottom line is that live performances drive sales and build your presence. There are isolated examples of artists who sell CDs and digital downloads without touring, but those are the exception, not the norm. I can’t emphasize this enough; you need to think about where you have played and the quality of your live performance so that you can make a realistic plan to build your live performance reputation and with it your fan base.
Live performance history is the easy part (or should be). Where have you played? Are you:
· a local artist/band who has played at some open stages and has had one or two local paying gigs
· an artist/band who has toured a few times in your geographic region
· an artist/band who has toured a few provinces or nationally
· an artist/band who has toured internationally
Where do you predominantly play (coffee shops, bars, theatres, festival stages)?
Have you been the headliner? For what size crowds? That’s not a comprehensive checklist, but I am sure you understand the process.
In addition to knowing where you have played; what is the quality of your live show? Presumably, if you are a headliner drawing big crowds, or someone who is getting a lot of festival shows; it is probably good. But if your career is not exactly where you want it to be, then you need to realistically assess your live performance. This is crucial - you need to assess not by what your mom or your girlfriend/boyfriend says, or what your friends say but by what industry people will tell you. You need to open up to feedback. That feedback is everywhere – you just have to seek it out and not “kill the messenger”. There are professionals who work specifically in this area, but if you can’t afford to hire one, then I suggest talking to people in the industry (in your pond) and asking for feedback. Why not approach a promoter or other industry professional and ask if they would attend your show and give you some feedback? And be open to what they tell you – they are not an asshole for telling you what you need to work on!!! Seriously, the music industry is filled with musicians who are not open to feedback. Feedback is essential if you are to achieve goals. Yes, you need to be able to discern what is real and what is not; but you cannot build a professional career based on your mom's opinion of how great you are.

That’s the first step – understand your live performance in order to start making a plan to improve it because if it isn’t good moving toward great – then you are not going to have a professional music career. That is the bottom line.

You also need to assess your recording/sales history. If you have one CD and you have sold 500 copies, and you are ready to make the next one – then saying you want to sell 10,000 of your second CD is probably not very realistic. Which comes back to understanding where you are so that you can plan where to go. Just a note on sales history, many grant programs require proof of sales history and while you may not qualify for those grants now, you might someday. You need to ensure you understand Soundscan requirements, that you make your submissions and then ensure that you are checking that the numbers are correct. Having 1,000 CDs pressed does not prove 1,000 sold!

The third area is your presence in the industry. This is somewhat more vague but there are some important things to consider. Do you have an email list? How many names are on it? (I’ll devote several blog entries to using social media effectively). Have you had press coverage? Where was it? Are there reviews online of your CDs or live performances? Do you have this information accessible? Do you have a good EPK? Have you showcased? Where? For what reason? Have you made contacts in the industry? Do you have solid relationships in the industry? As I said, this is harder to assess, but you need to consider these things depending on what your goals are.

The above is not comprehensive, but it is the foundation of your career. Just as you build the foundation before you build the house; your music career needs a good foundation based mainly on the quality of your live performance, and then your recording history and industry presence.

Where Are You Going?

So ... you think you want to make a career out of music? Before you make the leap into applying for grant money, spending your (or your parent's) money making a CD, or buying a cheap van to tour in - you need to consider your career plan. During the past few years I have seen over 100 grant applications, and overall, the main thing that stood out is the lack of planning. To go anywhere, you need a plan, but before you can make a plan, you need to get clear on your goals and those goals have to be consistent with your values.

Remember, your goals have to be your goals. Just because you have musical talent doesn't mean that you need to make music your career. You need to be exceptionally talented, and very, very driven to make a success of a professional music career.

So before you leap into the music business as your supposed road to riches, you need to think about what you want. And not just as a career, but overall for your life. How do you want to live in 5 years, in 10 years? What are the things that you value? For example, if you value being home with your family because you have children, or you hate being away from your boyfriend/girlfriend for more than two weeks; then the life of a professional musician is probably not for you. If you want to make a lot of money, you need to be aware there are very, very few musicians in Canada who make their living from music. There are thousands trying to do so, but very few who actually do, or if they do, they are barely making a living. So, with that reality check in place - think about your life and set some goals.

There are any number of ways you can assess your life and see how a professional music career fits in. The Art of Managing Your Career resource that I referred to in the previous post has an excellent goal setting/value assessment tool as part of Chapter 1. Use that or another resource and decide what you want. And if pursuing a music career is part of that - then you need to make a plan for that career. Whether that career is full time right away, or you have a plan to make it your full time career in five years, or you decide that you want it to be a hobby job forever - you need to make the plan that gets your career from where you are to 'there'.

Unfortunately, no one is going to make your success for you; you have to make it for you. If your ultimate goal is to make music your full time career within five years, but you can't fathom spending 20 to 40 hours a week learning the business side of music and working your career plan; then you probably are not ready to make music your career.

So, think about it ... and assess where music as a career fits in your life. Decide where you are going. If you are in a band, then your band needs to ensure that there is clarity between the members and some common understanding of what everyone's goals are. If you are working with a manager or label - the same applies. Anyone working with you needs to understand your goals and your values. When I managed, I asked "what do you want your career to look like" or "what are your goals" at least once a month. Maybe not always that directly - but I understood the importance of ensuring that I knew what the band or artist wanted. You need to honest with yourself, your band mates and anyone else working with you in your career. The industry is difficult enough without having people work different plans because there are differing opinions on what the goals are!

So ... where are you going? Think about that, and next I'll talk about how you assess where you are. Because to get "there" you need to know where you are!!!

A Great Resource

Having just started this blog and being the type who thinks before I act, I have pages and pages of notes that I have been making as I contemplated doing this, along with a list of topics. But, in that age-old way of meaningful coincidences, I just became aware of a tremendous resource that is already complete and covers a lot of what I was going to cover! As I was going through the Alberta Music Industry Association newsletter today, I was interested to see that there was a resource called "The Art of Managing Your Career". As referenced in that newsletter, the Cultural Human Resources Council has recently released a 2009 edition of their resource called "The Art of Managing Your Career - A Guide for the Canadian Artist and the Self-Employed Cultural Worker". This five chapter book is available online and while it is for all artistic disciplines, there is also an accompanying discipline specific series which includes "The Art of Managing Your Career in Music and Sound Recording". If you are at all serious about your music career - take the time to make use of this fantastic resource. I just read The Art of Managing Your Career in Music and Sound Recording. It is 35 pages of general but extremely valuable information along with several pages of links to relevant websites. While I haven't yet read the five chapters of the main publication, they appear to contain helpful information and exercises. The exercises help you evaluate your competency and help you set goals, and then there are chapters such as "You and the Law".

In short, as it says in The Art of Managing Your Career in Music and Sound Recording "The basic assumption of this project is that you wish to treat your musical aspirations like a business. This is no small step - many musicians never make this leap of logic, and spend their careers wondering why their bank balance never seems to equal their talent" (page 13). Quite frankly, that is exactly how I feel. I have listened to many, many musicians lament that they don't earn what they should. I will tell you right now that you earn exactly what you should and if you don't like it - then you need to do something to change it or get out of the business. Don't be like the guy in the seminar I was at this year at SXSW who stood up and said "I'm approaching retirement age and I have no money because this business never appreciated me and paid me what it should". Seriously, whose fault is it that he has no money? The industry's ... or is it his? Personally, I think it is his. I know that is a very unpopular thing to say but it is true - if you are going to put a price on something (your performance, your CD) and sell it; then you are in business. Just like any business, you cannot expect people to line up to give you money. You need to provide something the marketplace wants; you need to create your career. So start acting that way and learn about not just the business side of music but about business in general. The sooner you embrace the business side of music; the better off you will be. Or as an alternative, you can continue to sit around with your musician friends complaining about the industry. Because that appears to be many musician's second best talent - complaining. I suggest that you take the energy you have been putting into complaining, and put it into learning. Your bank account will thank you!

I'll be drawing a lot on this resource as I continue to blog. The next topic up is "Where Are You Going" and I'll talk about making the decision on whether or not you want to make music your career, whether you want to keep it as a hobby, and what factors enter the decision that you need to make. There is no 'right' answer - you need to assess your situation. And I will try to give you some tools to help you do that. In another post I'll talk about goal setting after I help you assess "Where You Are". And then we'll get into the fun of making a career plan.

If you know me at all ... you know I wouldn't forget this ... this is where you get that great resource that I referenced above http://www.culturalhrc.ca/amyc/index-e.asp

The music industry specific information is a "Discipline Enhancement" from the menu on the left hand side. Enjoy reading!

Where Are You, Where Are You Going, and Most Important, How Will You Get There?

In order to really accomplish anything, you have to first decide what it is you want to accomplish. That either sounds dumb or self- evident to you depending on your point of view, but stay with me for a minute. Often, if you ask a musician or band about their career goals they can’t define them. They might say “We want to be stars” or “I want to play my music for people” or even “We want to win a Juno award.” While those might be dreams, only the last one is a goal; although how realistic it is for that particular band might be up to debate. (See the link at the bottom of this post if you are interested in my definition of dreams versus goals).

Even if an artist or band has specific goals (e.g. winning a Juno award); if you try to “drill down” from those goals to the plan to achieve the goals – quite often there isn’t a plan. I think that everyone knows this – you know that you need goals and a plan to achieve them. But you might not know how to get started. Either that or you view goals and plans as something you do to get grant funding; not something you use to manage your career. But plans are essential if you want to achieve anything.

Think of your career like a road trip. Generally if you are going on a road trip – short or long, you have a specific destination in mind. Occasionally you might just get in the car to “go somewhere” (come on … we have all gone on those late night left/right tours or was that just a small town Ontario thing that I did?), but that aside, usually you are going “somewhere." You know where you are, and you know where you are going. This is what I think is missing for musicians. The realization that this is how it has to be with your career. You need to have an idea about your destination - where is your career going? Do you want to be a professional musician? Do you want your music to be your career? When do you want it to become your main source of income (if you do)? What do you want to accomplish? By when? And you need to realistically assess where your career is now because that is your starting point. If you don't know where you are, how will you know how to get where you are going?

Your career is like a cross country road trip, and just like driving across the country, your career will need to have a starting point, an end destination, and interim destinations (the first night we’ll stay at …). Your career needs the big dream goals, and the more immediate interim goals, and most of all you need a plan on how to achieve those goals. If you would like to get an idea of how to assess where you are, how to set some career goals to define where you are going, and make a career plan to get you there – stay tuned.

If you are interested in my definition of the difference between wishes, dreams and goals – feel free to read my blog post on the subject here http://businessdreams.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3778AE852DC720!140.entry

Making a Plan for Your Career in the Music Industry

Like anyone who blogs, I first asked myself whether or not I had a message to share. In other words, who the hell do I think I am? I don't know the answers on how to create success in the industry. I really don't know if I can help you; I just know that I have some ideas and some knowledge that I would like to put out there for you to consider.

Let me tell you a bit about me. I am no expert on the music industry and I will tell you that up front. I was in the industry (in Edmonton, Alberta) for a while as a manager, and because I am a person who likes information, I went to countless seminars at SXSW, NXNE, and the WCMAs. I read books and blogs. In addition to that, I have been on and have led many grant juries. Through those seminars and the numerous grant juries, I have learned that one of the most common problems seen in the music industry is that musicians don’t have a plan for their career. In many cases they haven't considered their goals at all, and if they have, they don’t know how to set realistic goals. In some cases, if there are goals there is no plan to achieve the goals. Many musicians lack the career skills they need to succeed. I’m not talking musical skills; I am talking about other skills. I know there are many resources out there for you; this is just one more. And it is simply my perspective so if you plan on telling me how wrong I am; either feel free or don't waste your time. I'll repeat, I am no expert. I am a business person with some background in business coaching and some knowledge about the music industry. If you would like to learn more about me; you can check out my website at http://www.businessdreamsconsulting.com/ and from that you can link to my general blog which is about goal setting, business success, and a variety of other things that interest me.

My goal in writing this blog is to share information. If you find it helpful, then I'd love to hear from you via comments. If you think I have nothing to say; you are welcome to tell me that as well.